Steadfast Christian Belief, Partisan Epistemic Standards, and the Challenges of Disagreement

Abstract

In this article, I argue that some views, including prominent versions of Christianity, are immune to the problem of disagreement developed in metaphilosophy and social epistemology. I start by formulating two skeptical arguments from disagreement: the conciliationist argument and the bias argument. Then I introduce the notion of partisan epistemic standards and attempt to show that advocates of views including such standards have no reason to accept one premise in each of the two arguments. Finally, I address two objections to steadfastness motivated by partisan epistemic standards: that such steadfastness is unreliable, and that it is vicious.